Responsibility of the Physicians: What a Physician's assistant may not do
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Physicians:
What a resident doctor may give to his employees, there is now a clear agreement. Certain tasks are sacred to the medical profession: only they themselves can make diagnoses and decide on treatments.
Berlin - Blood takes the receptionist off, the recipe also gets the patient from her, he sees the doctor only a few minutes. The everyday life of a doctor in private practice is strictly clocked, it is almost unthinkable that the physician himself does all the tasks that occur during a patient visit.
But again and again, the question of dispute, which tasks doctors may leave their employees. To end such discussions, Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung (KBV) and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband) now try to clarify what is permissible and what is not. To this end, they have concluded an agreement on the delegation of medical services to non-medical personnel at the GPs.
"The responsibility for the quality and appropriateness of a delegated service must not be given, but must lie in the hands of the resident physicians," said KBV Chairman Andreas Köhler. The agreement comes into effect on October 1 and provides an example of what non-medical personnel may do and what requirements are required. The regulation only provides general principles and excludes a few things, it should serve "the orientation of the actors".
"It's impossible to imagine day-to-day practice anymore"
In order for an employee to take on duties, he or she must have at least a medical specialist degree or comparable medical or health care education.
The responsibility for who does the work is borne by the doctor. He not only has to select the employees, but also instruct and supervise them. Depending on the qualifications of his employees, he may delegate tasks of varying difficulty to them. Exceptions are so-called highly personal services. These include, for example, the conversation about the medical history of the patient, the history, or the diagnosis and decisions about the treatment.
"Especially in the context of demographic change, the agreement is the right signal, and the delegation of medical services has become an indispensable part of day-to-day practice." From experience, I can say that medical assistants are enormously important to us physicians Patients and take a lot of work from us, "said KBV Board member Regina Feldmann.
Consultation: How the health system works in Germany
Above all, it is important for doctors to continue to delegate the work to their employees in the discussion that has been going on for years. They want to prevent non-physicians, even without delegation, from having the right to do the work on their own, which is called substitution. Medical representatives warn of quality difficulties and inefficiency in the case of substitution.
With the supply structure law introduced in January 2012, KBV and GKV-Spitzenverband had been commissioned to conclude the agreement that has now been drawn up for the delegation of medical services to non-medical personnel.
The agreement, drawn up jointly by the KBV and the German Medical Association (Bäk), is based on the Bäk's opinion on the possibilities and limitations of the delegation.
Most recently, the question of what physicians should do to non-physicians caused a stir in connection with medical studies. A medical student from Münster had been convicted of carelessly killing a baby for putting a wrong syringe.
